WTF with Marc Maron Podcast - Episode 1176 - Michael J. Fox

Episode Date: November 19, 2020

Michael J. Fox didn't intend to be an inspiration but he's glad he can help out. As Marc learned from talking with him, Michael maintains a perspective on life filled with gratitude and optimism as he lives with the effects of Parkinson's disease. Recently, after a run of health setbacks, that perspective faltered. But Michael tells Marc how he got back on track, how he maintains strong bonds with his wife and children, how he felt about giving up show business for a second time, and what he realized about mortality while spending several months on the couch watching re-runs. Sign up here for WTF+ to get the full show archives and weekly bonus material! https://plus.acast.com/s/wtf-with-marc-maron-podcast. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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What's happening? How's it going? Could you just just not just don't get the covid before the cure not that well not the cure but it seems like there's some promising things on the horizon here maybe we'll get a handle on this it's a very weird thing i recently had a an experience oh let me let me get some business out of the way because I'm very excited about our guest. Michael J. Fox. Everybody loves Michael J. Fox, rightfully so. You know him from Back to the Future, Family Ties, Spin City. And he's been very publicly living with Parkinson's disease since the 1990s. He's written several books about it.

And his new memoir is called No Time Like the Future, An Optimist Considers Mortality. I met Michael once. I met him once at one of the Comics Come Home performances with Dennis Leary. I met him and his wife. come home performances with Dennis Leary. Met him and his wife.

And it's a very heavy thing how we handle people who are living with real problems, physical problems, sicknesses, illnesses. illnesses, how the natural compulsion or the natural reaction that someone has a lot of times is like, oh my God, what a tragedy, what, you know, that's so sad. And Michael J. Fox has pushed back against that for years and has really kind of taken on his Parkinson's, his disease as sort of, you know, an unwanted but accepted partner in his life and worked with it. It's pretty fucking amazing. And metaphorically and literally on all levels, whatever your struggle even if they're just psychological the idea of like accepting and working with your liabilities your insanity if you're able to it's very inspirational and i was nervous to talk to him because it you wonder when somebody has

a condition that is that compromising like is itising, like, is it going to be difficult? Is it going to be difficult for him? A lot of worrying and sort of instinctually codependent activity goes on in my brain. But like, right. This guy's been living with this and talking with it and embracing it for decades. And once I got comfortable with him, it was just, it was, there's no way around it. It's inspirational, and it kind of gives you a fucking reality check.

That's coming up. I talked to him. Because look, I've been very public about, you know, what I'm going through, because that's what I do. And the weird thing about being public about what I'm going through, and I have this platform and I speak fairly openly on Instagram Live,

and I've shared my life fairly candidly for years. You know, tapering it certain ways as not to involve or offend or disrespect other people in my life. But for the most part, being pretty straight, you know, just I make some edits to protect some privacy. But, you know, all I've been dealing with outside of the stuff that we've all been dealing with which is a pig person in the white house who has destabilized the entire fucking world and uh pitted us against each other we're all dealing with that and we're still dealing with it i guess we're going to be dealing with it until biden puts his hand on that fucking bible in january and probably after that obviously but i am hopeful somehow and we've all been dealing with this plague and there seems to be reason for some optimism

on that front but for me you know i've been dealing with this fucking loss of a person i loved and and some animals i loved and and i've been public with that and it seems to be helpful it's not unlike the stigma of a disease. There's something about the way that Michael J. Fox lives with his illness publicly and de-stigmatizes it. Mental illness is another thing that is stigmatized. Grief is another thing that is stigmatized.

Aging is another thing that is stigmatized. Aging is another thing that is stigmatized. Class, stigmatized. I mean, the list goes on, but I can't speak to all of them. I can speak to mental illness. I can speak to grief at this point. But these are things that all human beings go through. Everybody's going to go through it. And as long as things stay stigmatized,

then we think when we have the feelings or we have the sickness that we have to, we have to hide. We have to lie. We have to cover. We have to blame. I have to cover. We have to blame. I don't know, man. Things are just weighing on me a little bit. I've entered some other phase of this quarantine situation.

So I guess I've been kind of serious, kind of raw, and still dealing with these waves of this. There's nothing good about grief. and still dealing with these waves of this. There's nothing good about grief, but it's something that everyone is going to have to reckon with. And I know that when I talk about it, I was recently accused of like using my grief to what? It it kind of drops off there doesn't it you're just exploiting your grief you're exploiting the the death of your of the person you love it's like are you fucking out of your mind why would i want that i just don't know how to make things up really and i talk about my feelings

and what i'm going through and i'm a creative person i wrote a for some reason i've been able to write anything about any of it i've been able to write in my fucking notebook at all i'm just sort of like dealing with feelings talking about them sometimes to whoever will listen and leaning on people to move through this because that's what people do for each other we're built to carry each other's burden a little bit and sometimes it's it's as easy as fucking listening but as I was saying I haven't been writing about this stuff because i don't know what to do with it and i don't feel the pressure i definitely do not want to like people like you got to write about what you're going through why why this is what i do i talk and i don't want to sell books

about whatever it is i'm going through this it's horrible. It's horrible. But for some reason, the other day, a few days ago, I started writing a song. I started writing a song about what I was going through. Now, I always play music at the end of this thing. And I'm not a songwriter. But I just took an honest approach to it. And, you know, I play guitar and people have said, you should do something. I never write songs. I've written maybe three songs in my life and I've only played, I've never played them. But for some reason, the experience I'm going through

out of my heart translated into this song. And it was relieving to me. And it's like writing a poem or it's like journaling or anything else that anything you have to do. You know, without hurting other people to get through the weight to the other side of it, or at least to get it so it settles in you. You got to do it. There's no right way or wrong way to deal with this stuff. Keeps coming. But anyway, so I did. I wrote a song, and despite my hesitation, despite knowing that anytime you put your heart out there in any sort of real way, someone's going to start kicking it around. But I put it at the end of the show.

So I shared it with you. If it inspires someone to write a song or to express themselves, great. I'm not looking for anything from it. It's just what I did, and I'm sharing it. I'm a guy who makes things, and I'm sharing it. So Michael J. Fox was great to talk to, funny and inspirational. And I'm sure he gets that a lot.

The book, No Time Like the Future, An Optimist Considers Mortality is available now wherever you get books. And this is me talking to Michael J. Fox last week. You can get anything you need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice r need with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get an ice rink on Uber Eats. But iced tea and ice cream?

Yes, we can deliver that. Uber Eats. Get almost, almost anything. Order now. Product availability may vary by region. See app for details. Hi, it's Terry O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis

marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talk to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations, how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising.

Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative. Week. Nice to see you, Michael. Nice to see you you have a little antifreeze yeah good oh it's nice what is in there what's in that blue drink that's actually that's a gatorade type concoction oh okay okay electrolytes electrolytes yeah yeah yeah things sparking in the morning yeah sure i think we met once i don't know if you're i think we met at boston denn't know if you remember. I think we met at one in- Yeah, Boston. Dennis Weary Singh, right?

Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And we're doing the show. Oh, I'm glad. Yeah. I was trying to remember where, because I knew I had the memory, but it was in the haze of my life, of all the memories. I know.

I'm in the same haze. Yeah. I mean, well, you've got the double whammy of I uh i'm 57 you're 59 and on top of that you've got the parkinson so i i imagine it's quite a jungle up there and you've got to whatever you got yeah whatever the fuck i have which is just you know my i lose i don't know it i the memories start to to if you lived enough places if somebody says they knew you from somewhere you got to be like all right what year and what town and then you remember and you go oh yeah you're that guy did you see a bar and say i know that but oh yeah yeah yeah did i do what oh yeah i can't i didn't want to remember that yeah i didn't realize that like i'm like i'm a recovery guy and i and i talk kind of openly about it

and i don't know where you're at with it but you talk about it in the book but i didn't realize that uh you know the dark night of the soul that lasted a few years was directly related to uh to your your parkinson's diagnosis that's when you started drinking no i i started drinking at 12. okay yeah i was i was a party guy and like partied and then when i got diagnosed then it became more medicinal and right right directed it lasted a few years about two three years after my diagnosis right oh so you were going out of pretty heavy the whole time yeah i i was diagnosed when i was diagnosed in 91 or 90 i can't remember now and um and i i quit drinking in 92 ross perot's birthday june 28th but you had been building

towards that you were going to get there either way probably they were saving a seat for me yeah yeah because i was trying to figure out like you know when you were shooting you know back to the future and running back and forth to do family ties i was like you know how the hell did you do that i was just pure youth i didn't need anything to get me going i needed stuff stuff to put me to sleep so i i drink i drink beers on the way home oh okay crash out and get up in the morning so you're always kind of wired i was like 23 years old when i was doing a TV series on the Steven Spielberg movie. So I was, I had a lot to juice me up. Yeah. Yeah. So, so like when you, I guess what, what this book is about is, is the sort of second kind of collapse of your, your, your, your,

your sort of disposition in relation to all the work you've done on maintaining a disposition that got you through life, that it kind of got dark again. Yeah. And some of the tools that you had once relied on stopped working. But I guess in the first time, how much did you really draw from those ideas in recovery to kind of get you through? Well, the big thing in recovery for me was always the concept of acceptance and surrender. Right. It's just, I got to get too big for me.

You kick my ass, I give up. Right. Which doesn't mean, I would say, like, if you accept something, it doesn't mean you can't endeavor to change it. Right. But you have to accept it first. You have to deal with it as a fact. And, I mean, it's like this fact deficit we've been dealing with in the country for the last three years. This is what it is. You lost.

This is the reality. Step up to it. Get into it. My kind of thing was that I had always with alcohol, alcohol does what alcohol does. It covers things up and buries it and gets it out of your mind. You're not thinking about it. You remember it six months later. Whereas with this, just to give you a thumbnail of what happened. I had Parkinson's for like 30 years whenever I was dealing with that. Like I said in the book, we kind of reached a detente. It gave me the room to do what I wanted to do. It took the room that it needed to take from me.

There were losses, but there were gains. And then I had this spinal thing, this tumor on my back and my spine. I had to get that removed or I was going to be paralyzed. And there was a chance with the surgery I could be paralyzed, but I wasn't. I learned how to walk again. I had to learn actually the kinetics of walking again and mechanics. I still don't do it that well. So I went through all this, and then I was feeling cocky. I got walking

again and I kept stressing every day. I wanted independence. I wanted them to leave me alone and let me get better. So I finally got, I conspired to have a night in my apartment by myself and my family were on vacation. I was waking up the next morning to go do a cameo in a Spike Lee movie. A Spike Lee movie he was producing. And so I was all jazzed and I got up the next morning to go do a cameo in a Spike Lee movie. And Spike Lee movie he was producing. And so I was all jazzed and I got up in the morning and I got out of bed and I walk into the kitchen. I think I feel really good. I took a little spin on that, on that, on that tile.

I went down, shattered my arm, shattered my amourous. So that was the thing. That was the thing of all the stuff I dealt with. That was the thing that I was sitting on the floor waiting for the ambulance to come. Just going, what an idiot. What a fucking idiot. And then finally,

I just went through this whole thing about there's always optimism you preach to people. Like, how can you, how can you like say chin up, you know?

Yeah. Like, this is broken arms. Your level of misery and people on the misery index have so much worse. Right. And you're like saying, it'll be okay.

Yeah. It won't be okay. It's bullshit. Yeah. I'm out of the lemonade business. Yeah. It just seems like everything converged on that moment from, you know, all the things that you had sort of framed a different way.

It was just that moment where you kind of blamed yourself and then it just collapsed from there yeah i just once it's on me then i i just found it very easy to brave myself and go after myself oh yeah but it's amazing you held that off for as long as you did yeah i think i would be think I'd get pissed at myself earlier. Yeah, right. But, like, in the beginning, you know, it was sort of amazing that you were able to, right, like, the way you talk about your wife, Tracy, is it's just a profound relationship that, you know, from the beginning, from that moment where, you know, you've got your diagnosis, you've had tremendous success, you're relatively newly married, but you're listless and self-pitying and just drowning yourself in booze.

And it was a moment where she basically said, is this how you want to be? Yeah. Is this it? Is this what you want? It was a horrifying moment. I was on the couch. Yeah. On the couch. We lived on the west side, so the sun was streaming in. I was on the couch. Yeah. On the couch. We lived on the west side, so the sun was streaming in. I was on the couch just sweating. I had a cool as tall boy that spilled over on the carpet on its side. My son was kind of climbing on me and poking me. He was three years old. And I kind of

woke up and I saw my wife's feet. And I looked up and I saw her go to her face, expected to be really pissed at me, but she was just bored. She said, is this what you want? Is this what you want? And in an instant,

I went, no. And I was in a meeting two days later. That's amazing. You were prepared for anger, which you could just, that would just add to your self-pity,

but the sort of, the boredom, that was too much to handle. Yeah, it was like, she was just over the whole floor show. She was over it. And she was really, she's just over the whole floor show she's she's over it and she was really she's really frank about it that's what she said

that that moment she said it's not what she wanted to do but she was ready to go okay this will call this on account of pain and but it's interesting that she comes from sort of a legacy of of self-help right i mean she comes from a family of self-helpers, right? Well, certainly personally motivated people. Right, right, right. Accomplish and address issues. Her brother is Michael, right? Brother is Michael Paul, yeah. Wrote the Bible on hallucinogens.

And didn't he write something about food too? Am I missing? He wrote a lot about food. And the most recent book is this sort of microdosing of hallucinogens. It's a really cool book. And he also wrote a book, my favorite book that he wrote. It's called Botany of Desire. It's a natural history science book about how plants manipulate us into making them better.

Like apples. Apples, they played a whole game on us to make apples for apple cider, and we promulgated all these apple trees all over the place. And like marijuana, how it kind of, if you twist this, we'll get better. We'll get higher and we'll get stronger. Yeah. It was all to serve the plants because they knew in their deep primal heart on a global level that they'd be left after us and they needed to survive.

They were screwing with us. Yeah. I love that book. So the beginning, when she calls you out and you go to meetings and you get off the booze, and that sort of – the idea of powerlessness is certainly a good place to start with sort of anything out of your control oh not to scare anybody when i say it's sober but the first you get sober and then the first two years of sobriety like a knife fight in the closet yeah it's just like it's no fun you trust no one you believe no one you're like i would i would wear like the same thing i wear jeans and a white t-shirt and just like just go sit in the back. Right.

Angry. You know, fuck you, people. It's just like, yeah, yeah. It gets better. Fuck you. Yeah. That's that moment where, you know, you finally share and you're pissed off and you hate everybody. And some old timer comes up to you and says, you sound great.

Keep coming back. Like, what are you talking about? You know, I mean, it's been a long time for me, too. It's been like 21 years or something. Longer for you, I guess. Wow. 28, 28. Are you still in touch with people in the rooms?

Yeah, I still am. Oh, that's great. Not to the extent that I was, but I try to show up every now and then for as much to get a chip and show a little gratitude. And that was the sort of the interesting thing about this particular, you know, dark period that you went through after you broke your arm was that, you know, that your gratitude somehow dissolved. dissolved and you started to question, you know, the impact you had on other people by actually being, you know, optimistic and sort of proactive in living with your disease. That struck me as kind of interesting that you felt, you know, guilty somehow. Yeah, I felt that I had, and I was going to feel that I have a lot of things in my life, been a lot of luxuries and a lot of perks that a lot of people don't get. And I try to keep that in my mind when I'm assessing my situation compared to other people's situations.

So I started to think, well, how easy was it for me to say, oh, sure, I feel great. It's all good. And a lot of that is real. I mean, the most of it is real. I felt all of it was real until that moment under the phone. And then I went, oh, no, I feel great. It's all good. And a lot of that is real. I mean, most of it is real. I felt all of it was real until that moment under the phone. And then I went, oh, no, there's another level here. There's another level of disquiet, another level of anger and of not accepting it, like not being willing to accept it. So I said, oh, this whole new thing exists. And I got to look at this. I got to look at what I've been offering up. Optimism is a panacea. I was

sincere in what I said, but at risk of sounding glib. Yeah, right. So I kind of opened my mind and I said, let's go through this next period and I'm just going to take notes and just be aware of what I'm doing. When I'm watching on television, who I'm interacting with, what message I'm sending them, what message I'm sending them, what message I'm getting back from them. And I just started, the gratitude thing became a theme that I picked up on and realized

everything good came back to gratitude. And this notion of optimism being sustainable when there's gratitude. Right. Gratitude is what makes optimism sustainable. Right. And also I think like alongside of that realization or that questioning process, I mean, we're also in our mid to late 50s here. I mean, that's a natural. Yeah.

You're mid. I'm late. I'm 57. I'm getting late. Not much happens in the next two years. No. You go through a soul-searching crisis. Exactly.

Anyone does. Yeah. That's what I recommend. Take notes. You get a book out of it. happens in the next two years no you go through a soul-searching crisis exactly anyone does yeah yeah that's what i recommend take notes you get a book out of it good i i that's yeah it's been a tough couple years you know but uh but yeah but i think that that that's also a natural time for you to go through that shit on top of whatever you were going through right yeah it's interesting you mentioned tracy uh well of course you mentioned tracy but i gotta think about this morning i was having a hard time walking this morning yeah i was getting in my house in long island and getting in the car and she's helped me get down the stairs and she said are you okay and i said yeah it's life she goes yeah tell me about it and i said

yeah you got a piece of this that's right you got a piece of this it hit hit me, but you got winged. And I apologize for that. I realize that what she does, people always ask me what she does and what's so cool about her and why it works so well with us. And I think it's because,

especially as it relates to the Parkinson's, is that she can feel it. She can understand what I'm going through without assuming it and taking it on as something she's going through. She never makes me feel like,

because I have it, she has it. It's totally the opposite. She kind of goes, I can understand it more fully than any other human being you know, but I don't understand it as well as you do. She always allows me that room that I know, that extra little piece that she can't know,

and she puts up with that. Right. She had a piece of it. She has boundaries around it. That's good. I mean, if she was more codependent, you guys probably would have spiraled out years ago. Yeah, we'd be sitting together in blankets over our laps on the porch

waiting for someone to bring food. Did she have that part of her, did she have to go through that part of your process to kind of detach? Or was it always natural that she had that ability to have the boundaries? I think she learned it when I think she adapted. Yeah.

I think she always had the predisposition to it. I mean, she always, even when I was like out of control, she gave me that edict and in a sense, an edict, a strong hint. I had to change my ways. And

after that, it was cool. Like we had this thing, we had a son, our son was three and i went up to the time that he was about five or six i i said you want to have another baby and she'd go are you out of your mind that's ridiculous you know i gotta have another child and then then one day she came and said he could use it he could use a brother or sister and then we had twins a year later right it's kind of cool it's a nice validation. And then we had twins a year later. It's kind of cool.

It was a nice validation. Yeah, and then you had another one. Now you've got a full crew. We had four. Oh, they're great. Yeah. They're all adults now, too, so they're great. They give you no under shit.

They're all smarter than me. Well, that's good. And it seems like you all get along. That was really really the heart a heartbreaking part of the you know the the struggles that you're entering in in midlife was this idea that you know when you see yourself as as a liability or as a chore and have to you know you know kind of weigh that stuff against it because i i would think that in thinking that you know it's almost selfish to think that in terms of of how your loved ones love you. So, like, it must be a very difficult balance to sort of navigate that. Yeah, it's hard to explain why you're outside of personality, outside of who the people are to you.

Just natural kinetic coming together. natural kinetic coming together when you're in a certain place and someone wants to help you assist you or grab you or touch you or move you or help you. It's just, you suck the laugh. Yeah. And then you have to think it through and think, well,

I see where they're coming from and I see what they, what they need from this. And I see what I get from it. And I have to admit that I get from it and then we can go forward, but it takes it takes some adjusting yeah because people say when i'm walking sometimes my my momentum will get carry me i'll go faster it's like i talk about in the book the heisenberg principle that you can't measure location and speed at the same time because by the time you measure this

if you're measuring the speed of it just move from moving the location. So it's the same thing with, I don't know where I am or how fast I'm going at any given time. I can't calculate those two things. So I'll start to walk too fast and I'll trip over something and start to fall. People will go, first thing they'll do is say, be careful.

It's too late. I'm already, I'm going down. I appreciate the sentiment, but you missed the bus. And then the other thing is, when people go slow down, it's like, I want to walk with my head four feet in front of my feet and a pitch angle like this going 30 miles an hour toward a bank door. I mean, that's my choice.

That's the direction I'm going in my life. So it gets frustrating. But then with family especially, it comes in. All things filter out and you get down to the place where you're just supposed to sit down on the couch watching TV and lean over and put your head on your shoulder and you just realize you're safe.

Yeah, yeah, and that love is deep and real and the understanding is intrinsic to the family unit there. Yeah. You know, it's really wild that you said during this whole pandemic. Yeah. We were, we were a lot, we were quarantined in our house in Long Island and we usually just got there on weekends in summer. So it's weird to be there in March and kind of hunker down and,

and the whole family was there and we, yeah, we did all the things. We had to take some puzzles March and kind of hunker down. And the whole family was there. And, yeah, we did all the things. We had to jigsaw puzzles out. We had long conversations. I did cook dinner. And we had these long conversations about social justice and government and all this stuff. And it was just amazing. And then we thought about the fact that there were people pressed up against the glass trying to see their loved ones in hallways of corridors of hospitals and people that died alone and and it's just the the dichotomy the sad irony of the so many people found family and union

and and joy and other people were facing awful pain and suffering and and it's against all this i was writing this book yeah writing this book about myself and my inner looking at myself with a dental meter you know like oh navel gazing and inward stuff i mean all the world is falling apart yeah and it actually really focused me because i i could i could i could relate to to i put my pain in perspective, helped me write about it. In that you were able to, I guess like, it was sort of like trying to kind of come out from under a massive self pity episode. Yeah.

So for you to find some people who had more pain to compare yourself to on a, on a large level in the world we're dealing with, gave you a little space. You know, it wasn't even an active choice to compare myself to. I didn't go like, here's my issues, here's the issues of the world. Right. So you could sense it, you could just feel it. Yeah.

It's like, I'm thinking about this. Well, what am I thinking about this? Let me think about this. Right. And I'm looking at it from this angle, from that angle. And actually, it freed me up a lot of times. It helped me get silly because it just, I mean,

sometimes you just have, well, you're in the business. Trump's an occupation fool with an E at the end just to piss him off. Yeah, right. You have to look at things through a different lens. It was really strange, too. I don't

write. I can't type. I can't write with a pen. You need a Rosetta Stone to figure different lens. And it was really strange too. I had, I was, I write with, I don't write, I can't type. Right. And I can't write with a pen, but it was, you need Rosetta Stone to figure it out. Right. So I, I, I, I, I dictate and I have this partner, my producing partner, Nell Fortenberry and she would be on, cause she was locked down in her place in Sag Harbor. And we would get on this thing and I'm, I'm a, but I, I don't, but this is really weird that I've managed to get through this so far

without screwing it up somehow. And so I was really new to this whole FaceTime thing. And I just said, wow, look at the person in the van. Do you know who I am? Yeah. And I would get, I'd be writing, and I'd be sitting there going, you know, the crow was on the treetop and blah, blah, blah. Yeah.

And she'd write it out, and then I'd go to the bathroom, and I'd go, and I'd come back, and I'd bring two glasses of water. One for her and one for me, and they'd go, oh, no, blah. Yeah. And she'd write it out and then I go to the bathroom and I go and I come back and I bring two glasses of water. One for her and one for me and they go, oh no, you're not here. You were in it. I was lost in it.

Yeah, that's hilarious. Just a swirl of the world kind of being screwed up and it was a nice place for me to slip in and do my inventory. Wow, I mean, so that was the writing process.

That's something else. So you would sort of, you would think it and then dictate it, and then she would write it down. Yeah, I'd have notes, and I'd go, like I'd say, today I want to talk about, I always wanted to, because it's such an odd thing, I write about television, I write about golf, I write about just these strange things in my life. I'd say, I don't know. I'm going to talk about television today. So then I just have these notes and I'm jumping off places and I'd write it.

And it's funny when you speak it. If you speak it with the intention that it be on the page, it's funny with humor. Like the way we time a joke. Right. It's a lot to do with like you add fish glad you right right you got a page you gotta you gotta somehow set that up on the page yeah that's why the ellipses are my favorite thing in the world and editors are always taking them out you can't use the fucking ellipses i need the dot dot dot this is where i adjust my tie yeah that's the

timing yeah well i mean it's a there's you start to realize, I imagine, that it's like joke writers, like the comedy writers. There's a beat to it. I mean, because there's a lot of funny bits in the book, but you can see that eventually you learn that there are these beats, and it lands. It's just a different place to deliver it, you know? There's a running joke I had with the Family Times writers where they'd write, you know,

Mallory says, my boyfriend and I, it's like we have one mind. It's like one heart, one mind. And then it said, you know, Alex beat who's using it tonight. And I say, you don't have to beat there. I know there's a beat there. I'm going to go get a fucking glass of orange juice, walk to the front of the proscenium, stroll over to her, stroll back, put the juice back in the fridge, come back and say, who's using it tonight and i made him bring the house down you knew the physical timing don't write beat yeah i'll take the beat there's a beat there i'll know when you look at like you know the way you've handled your life in this because there was some really touching parts in the book you know in terms of you know your mother and Ireland and then you know you had these two women who were

your your caretakers who were Irish that and I've got a fascination with Ireland I'm a Jew but for some reason I feel very drawn to Ireland and I'm an Irish guy who feels very drawn to Judaism yeah it seems like it your wife's Jewish I have my kids in Dublin feels very drawn to Judaism. Yeah, it seems like it. Your wife's Jewish? Yeah, my kids are jobbing in Bar Mitzvah. I get the bills to shift them. Great. But do you find some solace or some history in the kind of perseverance and ability for the Irish to kind of take the hit and take the hit and be remain sort of moving forward.

Well, I love, I love the survivor thing. It didn't even represent, I didn't even realize I started writing that. I like, I watched like Alone. I like that show, that TV show about the guys that they put out in Alaska by themselves. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. To forage and rot and eventually like it's going crazy.

But I like that survivor mentality and I like that about the Irish. They're indestructible and invincible. They carry on in spite of everything that's firing against them, much the same as the Jews. I mean, I have the same affinity for Jewish people. It's just survivors. It's just like, yeah, thank you, sir.

Can I have another? Thank you, sir. Can I have another? Yeah, I think that the Jews are sort of more kind of, there's a different pitch to the complaining. Yeah, yeah. Well, it's like I described, I don't do very good dialects, but, I don't know, accents, but there was two nurses that I had,

and one was the morning nurse who was very like, Michael, good morning, Michael. And then I had the other one who had that kind of thing. They're both from Galway. So there's no reason they just had different accents. But

they did. And the other one had everything was questioning. Why do you think you're going? What do you mean by that? What do you mean by that? Everything was questioning. Where do you think you're going? What do you mean by that? I love that.

I just love that. She was the one I told to go to the Grand Canyon. I said, where are we going? The Grand Canyon. I said, where did she go? My father wouldn't let me go. He wouldn't want to go. I said, go.

Go to the Grand Canyon. Did she ever go? I got her a big coffee table book at the end of it. Biggest coffee table book for Grand Canyon I could find. Oh, that's beautiful. Yeah. It seems like there has been like, you know, I'm not outside your family as well, but like I found that, you know, when you decided to quit show business because you didn't, you know, I mean was that another moment of that you had to weigh like was it practical or were you feeling sorry for yourself what was the dialogue initially there were two there were two kind of quitting so it was one uh after after spin city which was in

2000 yeah i retired and i said you know i'm gonna start the foundation and then i started the foundation and i got going and you got legs real quickly and after a couple years it was going well so i was getting people were asking me if i wanted to do some acting and uh bill warren sued the scrubs asked me to come and do the scrubs and yeah the bus and legal and i did that i did uh uh curbing through that and i did all these did dennis's show uh rescue me and that was great. I started to get a lot of attention. I got two Emmy nominations and won an Emmy. I was like, wow, I have this second career that I didn't think about. I started doing Good Wife and did 26 episodes of that.

It was a nice kind of career because there was no financial imperative. I loved doing it. And I could find a better way to assimilate, to use my, to use Parkinson's in a way, like the affect of it, if not the essence of it, to play a guy with OCD, to realize that I can't stop my hands from moving, he can't stop his hands from washing. It's the same thing. So I just live that and apply that and and and then i found i could get i i put parkinson's to work i brought it into the family business and i made it i made it bust its ass and and and do some work and and uh with the

with a good wife i played a guy who had part of dyskinesia which is like parkinson's and he used it used it to manipulate people and and I loved the opportunity to show that disabled people could be assholes too. Yeah. No, I think that was, I think that whole lesson, you know, when, when Dennis Leary, you know, he brought you in and, and, you know, challenged you to a certain degree to play a guy, you know, that wasn't, you know, a Parkinson's guy and he was kind of an asshole and, you know, that your initial response, you know, was resistance. But it seems to me that like, not unlike many other episodes in your life that, you know, every, that your brain was, you know, trying to, to sort of

work with this disease, accept the disease, you know, integrate it and have sort of a strange partnership with it of acceptance. And it seems like those roles really helped you kind of, you know, see it for what it was, but also see the power of it. Exactly. It's exactly right. And then what happened with what you're alluding to is the second quitting or the second retirement. the second retirement, I did a couple of things just after my back surgery. So I had been somewhat – it was a different kind of disability than the Parkinson's. The two don't get along really well because Parkinson's wants to move my body and freeze it in different places, and my spine wants to not send energy to places.

So it's kind of dead energy. It's kind of weird to work with. So I was doing these other things. I did Kiefer's show, the designated survivor. And I did an episode of The Good Fight. Yeah. And I had a hard time for some reason. When I did Family Ties and I did stuff when I was younger,

I could look at the script and I could look at it for five minutes and go, I got it. I was younger, I could look at a script and I could look at it for five minutes and go, I got it. I knew it. I could just download it. Before I knew what downloading was, I would just download this shit and I would know it. And it kind of always stayed with me that I had that ability through Spin City and stuff.

And I started doing these shows and I couldn't remember my lines. I couldn't get them. I was so busy trying to recover them that I couldn't, and I couldn't, and I couldn't, I was so busy trying to recover them that I couldn't speak them in the way that, the way that I wanted to, according to what I had, what I had in mind for the character. Yeah. So I just, and it was about that time that, that, that I saw Once Upon a Time in Hollywood.

Oh yeah. And the great scene with Leo, when he goes in, that he can't remember his lines on the show, and he goes into the dressing room and he berates himself and just kills himself. But I had that moment. I walked into the dressing room and I said, no, this is when I'm supposed to yell at myself in the mirror

and say, you fucking idiot. You don't know you're on. I just went, eh. This is where I'm at. I can't do this anymore. That's certainly better. You waited until you fell on the floor and broke your arm to berate yourself. Yeah, that

berated myself and that was after. Yeah, but it's really hard for me. When I read the book, there are these your sense of humor and your sort of like you know, your humor, your sense of humor and your your your your your sort of like, you know, almost desperate need to navigate and maintain this relationship with your body. You know, in an intellectual way, you know, you you know, the way you confront it, it seems was never sort of like I'm fucked, but it was sort of like, OK, this is doing this now.

So now i've just got to do this to counter this and then i can uh walk you know like it's just this ongoing sort of vigilance of of working with this partner that is a degenerative illness yeah and i i've never like i don't know many people with these kind of illnesses, but, I mean, that in and of itself, it would seem that, you know, the desire to sort of give up would be sort of always pending. But I never got that sense from the way you discussed it, even, and also the fact that you just kept doing shit. I mean, that trip to, where was it? Well, before Africa, even just to Kathmandu. Is that where it was? Yeah, Kath like what are you doing like in my mind like i won't do that

just because i i'm nervous about food in other places but here you're you're dealing with this this disease and you're like you're on a plane to fucking Bhutan I'm like holy shit I I'm afraid to go to Arizona it's a little friend yeah yeah I just I've just life is better than the alternative and so if I'm here I'm gonna enjoy it and I want to and I don't want. And I don't want to brush over stuff. And I don't want to not acknowledge stuff that's real. Again, it's trapped in and it's understanding what my situation is. And so I just look at it and that's the thing. When I pile all that stuff up, it would never match how much I like life

and how much I love the people in my life. And how, and then, and then it was that moment under the phone on the floor, I would say, the phone was above me and I was on the kitchen floor. And it kind of fell on my arm and I just feel sorry for myself and Chris and I moaned. And, and, and I thought at that point, the pile was too big. I said, now, now the pile is too big. Now, now, now I don't, I don't like this.

I don't want to accept this. I don't want to take it. I don't want to try to understand it. I don't want to try to make it better. I don't want to push shiny face on it. I just want to be out from under this phone, off this floor, and fucking better. I just don't have to deal with this shit anymore.

You deserve that. You have the right to be fed up at some point. I mean, I don't, but what was great about it was that again, it led me into this place where I really thought about it. And I, and I,

I thought about, I just like started to get it reorganized again and get it, get it. But, but it came from different places. It came from different things. It didn't come from, I want to feel better. I want to do better didn't come from, I want to feel better.

I want to do better. I want to beat this. I want to live with this. I want to put a good face on this. It became like, if I listen to this message of gratitude that came from my father-in-law, who was a very influential man in my life. And, and, and I listened to, and I look at relationships and I look at, I look at things like, like, what if I, what if I get dementia? What if, what if I lose my, my, my cognitive abilities? Yeah. That mean, and so I, so I thought about that. So I thought,

and I actually had this moment that I talk about in the book. It was a real wild moment. I was watching an ad for for uh duplassid which is a parkinson's drug for parkinson's dimension yeah yeah and it's a drug we we were involved early on in in the development of it but um this guy is in the season this pastoral kind of yard of this beautiful home and he's looking at his dog and then he's got two dogs. And his wife is coming in now. His wife's with a man he doesn't understand. He doesn't know and he gets all anxious and it's about those kind of delusions. First time I saw the commercial, I'm standing in my office and I'm watching and then I

turned to my left and I said to the man who wasn't there, what did you think of that? Yeah. I actually did that. What do you think of that? But, you know, like you talked a lot about some of the hallucinations you had in the hospital, you know, after the back surgery. But you don't deal with that stuff on a regular basis, do you? No.

No, what i get is um i get things very easily explainable which is like peripheral stuff like like uh if i have my glasses on the frame of my glasses i'll see it until someone's moving it but then i know it's the frame of my glasses right right right i also think like another thing that you seem to do which is beautiful is that from all your life experiences you kind of build these metaphors that function for you. Like, you know, with golf, with leopards, you know, with like the like, I don't know how I never understood golf, but it seems like you have a passion for it. But you drew some analogy, you know, between, you know, golf and and and and and, and, and, and brain surgery. Like you, you, you take lessons from it.

Yeah. Like I like, I really like it in my writing. Cause I'm not a writer, but, but I love metaphors and I love cliches and I love to just bust up cliches and bust up metaphors and make them all crazy. Cause it's interesting to me. And, and I always find it, I think, I think in metaphors and I think like like uh it seems like it seems like things apply to things you wouldn't think they apply to like uh i don't know how to explain this but but like trying to learn to walk again so i had all these things right uh put the heel strike with the heel and bring the thing transfer away from

the thing get the hips out front and and all this list of things. Right. That I have to think about every time I go to the fridge. Yeah. And then I get to the fridge, I have to figure out how am I going to manipulate the stuff, and I'm going to pivot to put it on the counter to go back and get the other thing. And then my daughter, my 18-year-old daughter, breathes it through, grabs the coconut water, closes the door with her hip,

and bounces out the door. Yeah. And so I think, so then i think about golf golf i have to same thing i have to get my feet set get to you know get my look down at the ball get all that that list of things yeah and it's about golf right so what's more annoying like doing that with golf or if i have to do it for walking, I'll go do it for golf. Yeah, right. And the leopard thing was pretty scary.

Like, you know, to be stuck in a watering hole in Africa and then realize the connection of the leopard and the tree and then realize, like, I could be food. Yeah, I mean, like, my only hope is that I'm not that delicious. Yeah, because you're not going to be able to get away necessarily. No, the leopard jay, they bite back the neck and drop hanging from a tree in a second, and they're licking your hair off. That's right. Yeah, but the analogy you drew in terms of your life was that there's the leopard

that you see and then there's the one that you can't see and then there's the one that prowls around in your dark place yeah the one that you can't see that probably isn't there but there's the shit and then well yeah then i talk about like like i'd be on the safari yeah you know and i'm seeing all the animals and all this stuff and we did we, we had this thing where we broke down at the watering hole. And I was thinking, I was saying, take my family back and I'll wait here for the truck to come. And I'm thinking, I'm going to die. I'm going to be eaten by a leopard.

It was up in that tree that I can't see now. And he's just waiting for, because I'm going to taste, I'm a slow old one. I can't move that well and I'll be easy to take down. So I wait for those young ones to leave and they'd get me. But then the truck came and we were rescued. But when we got back to the camp,

we're in these tents, you know, these kind of glamping things. Yeah. We had a poor poster bed and desk and post-African area, horns and antlers and skulls. And I had to make and it's in a tent in the middle of the night. I go pee and I got to go to this thing at the end of the tent,

which is this kind of latrine thing. Yeah. Bathroom is not really worth it. And I have to surf through like the dark. I have these reading lights on that have a light on it and set my head so I look like one of those fish in the Mariana Trench. The Anglerfish? The Anglerfish.

Yeah. I'm feeling my way through this antique store, and I realize that I can't lean on anything. I can't lean on the wall. If I lean on the tent, the whole tent comes down. It comes down to my wife, and then it comes down on me, and the nearest hospital is like in Kenya or something. Yeah.

And that's the scariest part. Yeah. That's the most potentially lethal thing I'd do on that whole trip. Is go to the bathroom. Is go to the bathroom at night. Yeah. And so I put that in perspective. There's a leopard you see. There's a shit that you're really afraid of

and you can see him and he's scary but you're okay because you're in these big vehicles and they don't see individuals in a vehicle they see the vehicle which is a big monolithic monster that they don't want to mess with. Unless you get out of the vehicle then you've exposed the fraud. You've become

lunch. Yeah. And then when I was stuck at the waterhole, I was precisely that position. I was out of the Jeep because the Jeep was sinking in the mud. Yeah. But the serious thing was being in the tent at home and having to pee. Yeah.

And I peed shit. Just the practical thing. yeah yeah that was just the practical thing so when you like what what do you see what do you kind of see as the the thoughts that really got you out this last time well i i had a few things i had the golf thing was cool i had like these little side trips i took in the book um like golf with my buddies and people that I like. I talk about George Stavropoulos and Harmon Colvin, the mystery writer. Yeah. I did this strange little trio of guys that golfed in the same club.

This is what happened. Headphones and Parkinson's don't go. Headphones and Parkinson's don't go? Headphones and Parkinson's don't go? Yeah, because my hand is flying around all the time. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I had to stay with the mask. I finally said, can I put the mask on the chain like a librarian thing, like a librarian's glasses? Right.

And just have it hanging down. When I pop it on, I pop it on. But I would break the chain all the time. Yeah. We might be able to finish it up without the headphones if they keep saying it. Okay. So, okay, so you had good friends. Yeah, good friends.

And so that was a big thing, and that was important. And then these moments with my family that were just little moments. I didn't write about spectacularly. Well, my daughter was the one thing. She was there the night before I had my accident. She begged me to let her stay and get me off in the morning. And I said, no, don't be silly. Go home.

Go home. Yeah. And the next one I did, she still wasn't over it. We still talk about it all the time. Right. And with Tracy and with, and then it was a big thing with my father-in-law. He was always saying it gets better. And he was always talking about gratitude.

And he was battling cancer, right? He was battling cancer. And we had this moment that I talk about in the book where I'd go over and visit him and we'd have lunch. And I'd bring him eclairs and a mystery novel. Yeah. And we'd just hang out. And he had a cat that would come down and walk down his arm, a little miniature cat

that would drink out of his water glass and walk back up his arm. And we went into the room, the TV room, so much to CNN and we were talking about Trump. Yeah. And then the doorbell rang at the back, the service entrance, and I went back in and it was the guy from the hospice.

Yeah. And he had all the hospice equipment. And I brought him in and it was kind of awkward because Steve, you know, I didn't know how to feel about this. And so I gave the guy a tip and he gave us directions and he said, which one do you do as a patient?

And the last time I ever heard Steve really laugh. Yeah. last time i heard steve really laugh yeah i think the point you make towards the end of the book about about what you what steve said to you about you know gratitude being the foundation of optimism what exactly was that that he said well he he just talked around that i mean i put it in i expressed that as saying with gratitude optimism is sustainable. But he would say that, he would say, he would talk around that, that if you can't, unless you have gratitude, unless you're grateful for being there and you're grateful for what you're taking in, and you don't have to automatically be grateful, you find a way to be grateful. Right. You have to, especially when you're an alcoholic,

you know, that gratitude, I have to force myself to do it because I'd rather be sort of miserable. Yeah. You know, so, I mean, you have to make a choice to be grateful and make the list and all that shit. And it's worth it. But yeah, it's much easier to just go, rah, rah.

Fuck it. Fuck it. What's on TV? What's on show where there's people sitting in a tent for 10 months and rot? Well, I thought that was interesting that, you know, because I found a little of that during the pandemic, like that you,

when you were in your most depressed this last time, that you just fell into the rabbit hole of never-ending television. And you found you were in your most depressed this last time that you just fell into the rabbit hole of never-ending television and you found some comfort in that and you're sort of tripping out on all the different decades available and all the weirdness available but there's that moment where you talk about like you know realizing that you're part of this rerun world i'm gonna be survived by rerun yeah okay i was these game shows, these old game shows, which are horrendously racist and

misogynist and just like, you know, Native American will come on and be like, chief, big wumpum, wumpum, where you're just like, are you kidding me? Are you kidding me? And the lady will come on and it'll be wolf whistle and say, is it Miss or Mrs.?

It's Mrs. Oh. Yeah, right, right. Yeah, yeah. And the thing I also noticed was everyone is dead. Yes, everyone is dead. Everyone is dead. Every talk show host, every game show host was dead. Yeah.

Ironically, I still understand the best talk show host, game show host of all time has just passed away. Yeah. So a Canadian and a great guy. Yeah, Alex, yeah. Alex. Go Canada. Yeah.

Well, I mean, but yeah, so it's sort of interesting that that kind of brought you up against your mortality because I would think that, you know, like one thing I don't really hear or see from you or in the book is that this sort of impending sort of doom and gloom that you don't, you know, you, I don't, there's no real language around like, you know, this is going to kill me or, you know, I'm afraid of death or any of that. 30 years from now, dead. 30 years from now, dead. 30, 30. At least I give it 30. But if it happens before then, I, I, I, I say in the book, uh, the last thing you run out of is the future right it's the last thing so that's the thing you have is the future and then you don't have it right and you

don't notice right so so like i'm not too worried about that i don't and that doesn't freak me out except to the extent that i have my relationships are solid in my life, and I haven't left anybody any messes to clean up or any holes to fall into. So, you know, whatever. I'm more worried about my dog. My dog was there. Oh, yeah? Oh, there he is. You're more worried about your dog than your mortality.

Yeah, my miserable life. Is that the same dog that's in the book? Yeah. You love it. You love that dog. He's a great dog. And then after I wrote the book and I wrote about worrying about his mortality and how unfair it was that there's a sea urchin in the South Pacific that lives to be 250 years old. Oh, my God.

And my dog probably won't make it to 12. Yeah. And how fair is that yeah red correct yeah there's no i don't think there's there's not a lot of fairness to it all when you break it down no it's it's so you must all enjoy it just like a little little park is a little brain spine paralysis a little's, a little brain, spine paralysis, a little broken arm, a little alcoholic fugue. Yeah. It's all fine.

Yeah. It seems, yeah, it's very, like, it's very, I mean, you hear that all the time, but it is great to talk to you and it's inspirational that you're able to maintain this. And, you know, even reading your books, it helps me. And I think that that moment, like the one thing I know from doing a regular show where I speak my mind and deal with talk about sobriety or depression or whatever, is that there is an amazing moment where I didn't anticipate, and I don't think you did either, that your experience can truly help people, not just sobriety, but your experience with Parkinson's, back surgery, brain surgery, spine surgery.

But it makes a profound difference in some people's lives to know they're not alone with things and to know that someone else can get through it. And that's just a byproduct of the lives that you're living and in some respects in the life I'm living. But it's an amazing gift, I think. It's nothing I asked for. I want to tell you that I am glad you gave me the opportunity to say this. I saw a comedy special of yours about three years ago, about three or four years ago, and that in a lot of ways gave me strength to write the book.

I mean, I saw you just bare your soul and still be funny and talk about shit that even I wouldn't talk about, and I talk about anything. Yeah. And I just I said this is great this is so powerful and so it's so um I related so much about obviously because of the substance abuse and and and just the craziness of being a mind that wants to and wants to get everything out of life, wants to embrace life and soak in everything. There's soaking, but then there's this shit going on. Right. You're showing up all this black. Yeah.

And you can't fight your way through it. It's just really inspiring. I wanted to thank you for that. Oh, thanks, man. That means a lot. Thanks, Michael. And thank you for your book and thank you for talking to me. And I'm glad you're still having a good time.

Yeah, that's good. Take care, buddy. Bye-bye. That was amazing. I, I, I, it's, it stays with me now, that conversation with him and seeing him and having that time the book is called no time like the future an optimist considers mortality it's available now as i said earlier i'm not a songwriter but for some reason one came out of me i play music here all the time this is a little more vulnerable i know it puts me uh it puts me into the zone of uh being uh ridiculed

criticized and hurt but uh i wrote a song and i'm gonna play it it's tentatively called i'm done. This is a workshop here. Just me and a guitar, an acoustic guitar, which I don't do much. Who knows what it'll become? It may never become anything. So, yeah.

I don't do this. I don't do this. These are the times You're not alive with me Your boots are still here And the hat that you wore Still hangs by the door When dreams of you come They're just that you hear I weep with relief

Then wake up alone In a cradle of grief You're gone I'm done with relief then wake up alone in a cradle of grief you're gone I'm done I knew love and that's enough that's enough for me to go on when I disappear Forever In the eternal way We'll be together

Not knowing we're gone Not knowing it's all done All that is known is love was enough For us to go on guitar solo The room where you were I go in there sometimes Just to open up lines And sit with your things And cry for a while

If you were here now I know we would have lasted I loved you too much and now I cling to your absence which will always be true when I disappear forever I disappear forever Ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah, ah Not knowing we're gone Not knowing it's all done All that is known is love is enough for us to go on Vin lives. uber eats but iced tea ice cream or just plain old ice yes we deliver those goaltenders no but

chicken tenders yes because those are groceries and we deliver those too along with your favorite restaurant food alcohol and other everyday essentials order uber eats now for alcohol you must be legal drinking age please enjoy responsibly product availability varies by region see app for details hi it's terry o O'Reilly, host of Under the Influence. Recently, we created an episode on cannabis marketing. With cannabis legalization, it's a brand new challenging marketing category. And I want to let you know we've produced a special bonus podcast episode where I talked to an actual cannabis producer. I wanted to know how a producer becomes licensed, how a cannabis company competes with big corporations,

how a cannabis company markets its products in such a highly regulated category, and what the term dignified consumption actually means. I think you'll find the answers interesting and surprising. Hear it now on Under the Influence with Terry O'Reilly. This bonus episode is brought to you by the Ontario Cannabis Store and ACAS Creative.